


Shattered

by xxSparksxx



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Gen, Heartbreak, Missing Scene, Season/Series 05 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 15:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxSparksxx/pseuds/xxSparksxx
Summary: He has broken her. All these long months she has hoped and prayed, trying to be patient, waiting for him to come back to her. And now the final blow has struck, and she is shattered into a thousand pieces. She has lost him. If Dwight means to make Ross see the error of his ways, if he means to drag Ross here to beg forgiveness, he is doubly mistook. Ross will not beg forgiveness for something he clearly does not see as a sin, and Demelza will not be made a fool of again.A missing scene from 5.08, set after Dwight’s departure for Nampara to confront Ross.SPOILERS for 5x08. Do not read this if you are avoiding spoilers.





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> I apologise, again, for the angst. 
> 
> Beta-read by the lovely Lucretiassister.

Demelza watches Dwight stride past her. She heard what he said about doing something that he should have done months ago, but she doesn’t know what he hopes to achieve in going to Nampara. He’s gone to…what, confront Ross? Fight him? Persuade him to come begging for forgiveness? Fighting would be futile, confrontation pointless, and persuasion…

Ross has made himself plain. For months now he’s been pulling away from her, retreating back from the warm, trusting relationship that they’d built together these past two years. For months he’s refused to engage with her concerns, has spent his evenings in the mine rather than coming home to his family, supper in the library more often than with her – he’s barely _touched_ her, scarcely even a kiss good morning or good night. He has withdrawn from Dwight, withdrawn from Drake and Sam and Zacky, has refused to do anything about the ore theft or the cache of weapons she’d discovered down Wheal Leisure – and all the while, spouting angry treasonous words about a country that turns its back on the people who serve it. She has been so afraid for him, for his own safety, as well as for their marriage. To say such things in private is one thing, but in public – to men such as George and Reverend Halse and Merceron! She has been so very afraid.

Only with the children has he seemed more like his old self. Quieter, yes, more sober, with fewer laughs or smiles and less time to spend with them, but kinder with them than with anyone else. He doesn’t snub them the way he does Demelza. It isn’t open, what he does, not done in any way that might humiliate her or disgrace her, but what else can she call it, when he barely responds to civilities and brushes aside her attempts to make him speak of what troubles him? He snubs her, shuns her company and her trust alike, and she has only been able to be grateful that the children, at least, are not suffering from his moods.

Ned’s death has shattered something within him, she has often reminded herself, and time and patience would bring him back to himself. But every week he has grown more distant. Every week he has been less interested in conversation, less engaged with the farm or their workers or tenants. He goes for long walks, claiming a need for solitude, long walks and late nights at the mine, and now – now she knows where he has been, and that knowledge has broken her. Not the mine, not walks on Hendrawna beach. He has been with Tess. He has pulled away from her and gone into the arms of _Tess_, has been kissing her and holding her and no doubt more besides, for it’s been weeks – months! – since Ross shared such pleasures with Demelza.

He is not the man he was. She remembers the stories of Joshua Poldark, and how Ross had always said his mother kept his father steady while she lived. She has never worried about Ross following in his footsteps, but he has made it clear enough that she should not ask questions about what he is doing, who he spends time with…what women he is kissing. Some questions are best left unasked, he’d said. Well, this is a question that needs no asking for an answer to be plain. She has seen it with her own eyes, heard his tender words to Tess. She does not know who this man is, this man she finds herself married to, and she cannot endure the life he now offers her. She cannot stay to be constantly wondering whether he is with her, or whether his attention has wandered to another woman.

He has broken her. All these long months she has hoped and prayed, trying to be patient, waiting for him to come back to her. And now the final blow has struck, and she is shattered into a thousand pieces. She has lost him. If Dwight means to make Ross see the error of his ways, if he means to drag Ross here to beg forgiveness, he is doubly mistook. Ross will not beg forgiveness for something he clearly does not see as a sin, and Demelza will not be made a fool of again.

The children have asked her no questions, bless them. Clowance is still a little young to see this as anything other than a marvellous adventure, coming to stay for a while with Uncle Dwight and Aunt Caroline, and Jeremy, dear Jeremy, is perceptive enough to know that her heart is too wearied to be troubled with his questions. 

Not so Prudie, who demanded the truth before she’d stir a foot from Nampara. Demelza had told her – of course she’d told her, dear Prudie who is as close to a mother as Demelza could remember having – and she’d been appalled, outraged, and then determined to get Demelza and the children out of Nampara as fast as she could, though she’d muttered all the while that it should be Ross who left, Ross who faced consequences. Perhaps she’s right, but Demelza doesn’t care. She can’t stay at Nampara. There’s no return possible, even if Ross were to leave. It’s his home, their home, and every corner is filled with memories. Memories of a life that no longer exists. 

“My dear, come to the fire,” Caroline says to her, touching her cold hand. “You look half-frozen. Jeremy, Clowance, follow Bone and he’ll take you to your bedrooms. Prudie, will you go with them and help them unpack?”

“I want to stay with Mama,” Jeremy says quietly, her darling boy. She has an arm around his shoulders, and she squeezes him tight, clinging to her children as the only certainty she has left. “Please, Mama?”

She finds her voice. “No, Jeremy, run along with Clowance, for now. Just for a little while, my lover.”

“I dare say if you go to the kitchen, Jeremy, there will be some bonbons waiting for you,” Caroline suggests. Sensitive though he is, no child turns down the promise of sweets, and he brightens and leaves them, though not without a backwards glance. Demelza lets Caroline draw her to the fire, lets herself be seated in a comfortable armchair, unable to care whether her body is cold or tired, uninterested in the glass of canary that Caroline presses into her grasp. Nothing matters. Everything is dust and ashes.

“Perhaps, after all, there has been some misunderstanding,” Caroline says, but without any hope in her voice. “Perhaps Dwight will return with Ross, and this will all be cleared up within the space of an hour.”

“Perhaps I mistook what I saw,” Demelza says dully. “Mistook what I heard. Perhaps I’m a fool.” She forces herself to look at Caroline. “If you saw your husband with his arms around another, making promise about finding time and place for – for –,” She cannot say it. She closes her eyes and feels Caroline touch her hand again. “Would you think t’was all a misunderstanding? Or would you trust in your own eyes and ears?”

“I…”

“And wouldn’t you spend every minute of every hour of every day wondering if he be with her, when he be not with you?” Tears prick at her eyes, tears that she has held back until now, for the sake of her children. With Caroline, it is safe to let them fall. Caroline has seen her heartsore before. She had cried bitterly then, for Hugh and for Julia and for Francis and for the unfairness of life that snuffs out those with much still to give. She had sobbed into Caroline’s arms and let the pain bleed out through tears. She does not think there are tears enough in the world to ease the pain she feels now. 

“I would,” Caroline says in a low voice. “I…I would.” There is some pain in her voice; Demelza hears it, but cannot respond to it. She cannot think of aught but herself, and of Ross, Ross, _Ross_. “But – for him to do such a thing – he cannot be in his right mind, surely? He’s been so odd lately, so – so distant, so restless, but this…”

“T’isn’t the first time,” Demelza reminds her. There is nothing Caroline can say to that, nothing either of them can say. And yet how are the two comparable? Elizabeth had been his first love, an unattainable goddess to whom he had always looked, and Tess…Tess is a sly, devious creature, never content but with some grievance against those she thinks better off than herself. She is a plain, sulky creature, as unlike Elizabeth as is possible. What has attracted Ross, she wonders, though it is agony to think it. Is it just the form of her body? Or has he found something he likes in the caustic young woman? Could she, Demelza, have done aught to stop him? 

She sips the canary Caroline had given her, and wonders, dully, if she can drink herself into a stupor. Anything to make the thoughts stop, to make the pain stop. But Caroline and Dwight will stop her, and anyway there are the children to consider. They need her. They may not know it yet, but their lives are about to change so much; she cannot let them see her drunk, just now. The canary tastes of nothing, anyway. Dust and ashes in her mouth. Her eyes sting, but her cheeks are dry. The tears don’t come. She is too numb, yet, perhaps. 

She wonders if he will want to install Tess in Nampara. Perhaps she’s already there. She can picture it so vividly, the image cruelly clear in her mind. Tess in her home, Tess lounging by the fire in the parlour, Tess in their _bed_, in the bed she’s shared with Ross for fifteen years now. It makes her feel sick, bile rising in her throat. Would Ross be so cruel, so careless of her feelings? But he has been careless, he has squandered her trust and their love and their marriage. It’s all gone, her whole life, her hope and faith and meaning.

Except for the children. She must be strong for them. She must try. But she feels so broken, so very shattered from this blow. She does not know how to be strong anymore. Leaving him, leaving Nampara, took every ounce of her strength, and now…

Caroline puts an arm around her. “What can I do for you?” she asks. “Is there anything I can do, Demelza?” 

“The children,” she murmurs. “The children…they mustn’t be told.” Clowance is so very much her father’s daughter, so utterly devoted to him – and he to her, even of late. She’ll be distraught when she’s told the truth. And Jeremy, her precious boy…he loves his papa so much, but he’s like Ross, he holds things inside. No, they must not hear about this until she has found them a course forward. She is too hurt to think of a plan, now. Her mind and heart are too full of anguish. If she can stay here, with Dwight and Caroline, for even a few days, to give herself time – though no amount of time will heal this wound.

“Of course,” Caroline agrees readily. “Not a word of it shall be spoken in their hearing, I promise you. We’ll make a game of you all being here, perhaps. We’ll – we’ll let them take Horace and Garrick into the gardens, and have picnic suppers on the library floor, and let them toast their own bread, and…” She trails off, her voice becoming choked. Demelza sips the canary absently, without thought. “But my dear, they will know there is something wrong,” Caroline says after a while. “They know their mother.”

Demelza shakes her head wearily. Caroline is right, but she cannot think of any excuse to give that will not betray the truth. She is so very heartsick. 

“I feel like I am dying,” she admits. Her hand is trembling; Caroline takes the glass from her, before it can fall. And tears are in her eyes again, welling up and brimming over, sliding down her cheeks. She tastes salt on her lips. “I can’t breathe, Caroline,” she whispers. “I can’t _breathe_!”

“Mama?” It’s Jeremy, come back from wherever he’s been. He has a dish of marzipan with him, but no Clowance, no Prudie. It’s like Jeremy, to think of bringing his mama some treats, but his thoughtfulness makes Demelza weep all the more. “Mama, what’s the matter?” he demands, coming to her side at a run, the marzipan nearly going all over the floor before Caroline relieves him of it. He flings his arms around her, a sticky, warm embrace, and she clings to him, desperate for him, for this tangible reminder that she is loved. “Mama,” he whispers into her ear, “Mama, what is it?” She can’t speak. All she can do is hold him, her precious boy, and let his presence soothe her, a very little.

“I hear Dwight’s horse,” Caroline says, with obvious relief. “Jeremy, stay here with your mama for a moment.” She rises and goes towards the door, but Dwight appears before she reaches it. 

With one look, Demelza knows that Dwight’s self-imposed mission has been a failure. He looks shattered, as if his faith in the world has been broken. She can only remember him looking so once before, after Sarah’s death. The world had broken his faith then, and now Ross has done it again, destroying Dwight by whatever has passed between he and Ross. She hadn’t thought she had hoped, when Dwight had left, but now some further part of her heart seems to die. The slightest, faintest thread of hope that she has unconsciously held is gone, snapped by the forlornness in his expression.

He reaches out for Caroline, squeezes her hand in passing, but it’s Demelza he comes to, gentle hands detaching Jeremy from her without heeding either of their protests.

“Your mama is not well at present, Jeremy,” he says to her son. Gently, so gently, with no hint of a lie in voice or face. “She’s come here so we can give her some extra special care. A little rest from taking care of you all at Nampara. You won’t mind if Caroline and I help look after you both for a little while, will you?”

“No,” says Jeremy, obediently. “And Clowance and I will be good, Mama. We’ll look after you, too.” She tries to smile, and brushes her hand against her eyes to dry her tears. Not well, Dwight says. If grief is illness, she supposes he’s right. This weight on her chest, this lump in her throat, the weariness that drags at all her limbs…she would like to think it an illness. She would like to think it merely a bad cold and a fever, something that a few days in bed with a strengthening diet will cure. Nobody to blame, just an ordinary part of living, a temporary affliction that will pass in time. Not this agony that will stretch out for the rest of her life, long or short: the knowledge that she has had the truest of loves, her perfect match, and has been cast aside by him.

“Good boy,” praises Dwight. “Now run along to the kitchen with these marzipans, we don’t want Horace sniffing them out.” Jeremy giggles, which was no doubt Dwight’s intent. He kisses Demelza’s cheek and leaves, reassured by Dwight, still young enough to take on faith the word of a trusted adult. Dwight draws a chair close to Demelza’s, and Caroline joins them too, all three huddled close like conspirators.

“What did he have to say for himself?” Caroline asks. “Were you able to talk some sense into him?”

Dwight shakes his head, gaze skittering across Demelza and then away. “I will not repeat what he said.” Demelza feels nauseous again. She slumps against the back of the chair, pressing her lips together to try to keep from being sick. It must have been truly awful, whatever Ross said, for Dwight to be unwilling to relay it. “Suffice it to say, Demelza, you are welcome to remain here with us for as long as you need.” His voice is shaking. Fury or sadness, she can’t tell which. “I speak for us both, I’m sure. Caroline?”

“Of course,” she says at once. “Our home is yours, for as long as you need it.” Dwight looks at her, and she looks back. There is some undercurrent here that Demelza is not privy to, and normally she would care, normally she would want to make sure all is well between them…but not now. Thought for others, apart from for her children, is beyond her at present. “We both owe you so much,” Caroline adds. “You must stay with us for as long as you wish.”

“You’re both…very kind,” Demelza whispers. She tries to breathe through the nausea, but it’s not easy. Something is sitting on her chest, a dead weight that makes it hard to inhale. There is a question she wants to ask, a question that she can scarcely bring herself to put into speech. Some questions should remain unasked, Ross had said, for do we truly wish to know the answer? Perhaps this is one of those questions, but some sick, self-injuring urge makes her form the words. “Was – she – there?” she chokes out, each word like a blow, as if somebody is knocking all the wind from her lungs. 

Dwight reaches out and grasps her hands, his movement jerky, almost convulsive. “If she had been,” he says fervently, “I would not have left without bloodshed.” It’s some relief, but not much, not enough. Tess is not there now – and so? Demelza has scarcely been gone three hours. Perhaps this evening she will join Ross, or tomorrow. Perhaps he’s merely waiting for her place in the bed to get cold before putting Tess there to warm it again.

“You could not have fought him!” Caroline exclaims, appalled. Dwight gives a grim chuckle, his hands still tightly grasping Demelza’s, as if he’s trying to anchor her somehow. Perhaps she needs it; she feels lost. So very, terribly lost.

“Even a doctor in the army or navy must know how to shoot a gun, and you forget, I’ve trained with the volunteers, as well.” He looks closely at Demelza. She doesn’t know what he sees, but he doesn’t seem to like it. “Caroline, would you fetch my bag? Demelza, I’m going to give you a sedative. Rest is the best thing for you, right now.”

“I don’t want rest,” she says, with the slightest shake of her head, feeling barely capable of movement. “I want to –,” But she can’t say it; she finds, to her surprise, that she doesn’t mean it. She feels as if she might die, but she doesn’t _want_ to die. Because whatever she has lost, no matter how great the loss…she still has her children. Dearest Jeremy, darling Clowance. They are hers, and they love her, and she will find a way through this, somehow. For them.

“A sedative,” Dwight repeats. “Things will…things will seem better in the morning.” 

He doesn’t believe it. She hears it in his voice, sees it in the tremble of his mouth. He is bruised and shaken by whatever Ross has said to him, shaken and shattered. And she is shattered too, broken into sharp, dangerous pieces with jagged edges. She may be able to pick up the pieces, to reassemble them into some order, but it will not be the same order. A broken jug cannot be reassembled into the same, watertight container. A mirror, once broken, will never reflect truly again.

She will never be the same again. She has lost Ross. He is lost to her. He is lost, and he has taken her world with him.


End file.
